MS Mus. 1856

Two movements of an early piece for string quartet in C minor by Frederick Delius. Dated ‘1888-1891’ at the top of the first page but with the later date crossed out in pencil. Mostly in brown ink, with extensive annotations and amendments in both ink and pencil. Written on four staves per system, with four systems to a page. Various sketch material appears in pencil at the end of the manuscript.

The manuscript consists of a single gathering of five bifolia, with one single sheet (f. 7) and one bifolio (ff. 11-12) inserted later.

See MS Mus. 1745/1/35, ff. 1-6, for what are thought to be the third and fourth movements of the same work, following on from the last 11 bars of a different conclusion to what is the second movement in the present manuscript.

ff. 1-8. First movement, marked ‘Allegro assai’. Pages numbered [1]-11, but the original page 11 (f. 8r) has been changed to 13 and the music crossed through. A single page seems to have been added later and numbered 11 and 12 (f. 7), providing a revised ending to the movement. In several passages the notation appears to have been written in pencil first then inked over. An amendment (f.5) has been pasted onto the top right hand corner of f. 4r.

ff. 9-14. Second movement, marked ‘Allegro vivace’. The thematic material of the opening and much of the middle section appears in a different form in the second movement of the revised version of Delius’s later String Quartet in E minor (RT VIII/8). Pages numbered 14-21. Most of the original page 18 (f. 10v) and all of page 19 (f. 13r) have been crossed out, with another bifolio inserted in between. This is paginated 18-21 (ff. 11-12) and contains a different and longer ending to the movement. Yet another ending to this movement appears on folio 1 of MS Mus. 1745/1/35.

Additionally, pencil sketches appear on ff. 12v, 13 and 14. The last three pages (ff. 13v-14v) are unnumbered and include parts of the second movement among other material. The top corner of folio 14 has been cut out and removed.